Meanwhile:

12/29/19

1:30 pm

???

Bisharp was not happy at all. For the first time since it was promoted to General of Darkness Legion one month ago, he failed a mission that should have been surprisingly easy. After all, it was just about to get equal to Lucas's newly found speed before Master called him back.

Now as it was walking down the seeming dark hallway towards Master's room, it couldn't shake the feeling that a punishment was going to happen... No, that's stupid.

He wouldn't do that.

He wouldn't do that, right?

As Bisharp got to the door, something in the back of his mind told him to not knock the door and forget about everything here. Bisharp obviously ignored that calling. Even if he wanted to leave, a promise was forced upon him, and that promise can never be broken.

The thought of harm was still looming in his mind when Bisharp knocked on the door.

"Enter!" the voice boomed.

Bisharp looked at the door handle. The only thing separating his from Master and his fury. A gulp echoed in the hallway when Bisharp turned the handle. A desk with two chairs on opposite sides was placed in the middle of the room. In one of those chairs was the Pokémon he called Master.

Darkrai.

"Sir, before you say anything, I would like to mention—."

"Stop," Darkrai interrupted. "I'm not mad at you. I'm just disappointed..." he took a deep sigh. "Close the door and sit down."

Bisharp did as instructed. Right now, he knew what was going to happen no matter how much persuasion Darkrai would take.

He was going to do that.

***

1:31 pm

Treasure Town (Guild)

"Diglett!"

For some stupid reason, I decided to yell down at the Sentry Grate when Abby, Cord, and Chris arrived the trek that is the guild's long staircase. No one answered my calling.

"Lucas, what are you doing?" The Alolan Raichu was floating towards me.

My head moved towards him knowing what I had to say, even though I wouldn't like Cord's response. "What do you think I'm doing? I'm calling the Sentry."

"Dude, Diglett isn't always the Sentry, and you know that."

"What are you two chatting about?" Abby and Chris looked at both of us with the hint that they want to know what's going on. "Well?"

Cord glanced at me before sighing. "We're just talking about Sentry Duty since I know some Pokemon here."

"Sentry Duty?" Chris asked, confused. "What is that?"

"Sentry Duty," I explained while crossing my arms, "is pretty much trying to identify the Pokémon that step foot inside the guild building. Cord, do you want to demonstrate?"

"Fine." Cord hopped off his tail to land on the ground. He waited for me to explain the procedure.

"When Cord steps on the grate, there's going to be two different voices coming out. Try not to be startled by them." The Raichu walked into the middle of the grate, and sure enough, the voices came.

"Pokémon detected! Pokémon detected!"

"Whose footprint?! Whose footprint?!"

"The footprint is Raichu's! The footprint is Raichu's!"

"Cord has to stay there for a few moments, so I'm going to finish explaining there." My head moved towards the Raichu, who was acting like an Ice Beam froze him up. "The Pokémon that hears the Sentry must go to the floor right below us to see if Cord is a felon. If he is one, the guild will not allow them entry, and probably arrest him. But if he isn't..."

"You may enter!" Everyone could hear some gears clicking and shifting towards each other to suddenly stop.

"Cord can go into the guild without a problem," I finished with a bit of a smile. Cord quickly hopped on his tail and moved out of the way.

"It sounds like you have three more strangers here. Get them over here!"

One by one, the rest of us went toward the grate waiting for whoever was in the Sentry role to give us access. Both Pokémon were slightly confused with Abby and Chris going back to back, but it's not like they haven't seen that before.

"All of you may enter!"

The gates slowly opened right in front of us, and the four of us finally were allowed entry to the guild. Taking a walk inside, the layout of the entrance room was the same from when I first played Explorers of Sky. The board to the right having the motto, the signs across the entire room, and the spiral, wooden ladder going down to the first sublevel were all there. 'Seems like nothing has changed at all,' I thought to myself for only Cord to hear.

Yeah, that's what makes me worried.

Abby started to hop on the first step down when I looked at the Raichu. "What do you mean by that?" I whispered towards him.

Chris started hopping down the same pace Abby was in before looking at us. We didn't notice it as Cord was shaking his head towards me. I just made a lie about the guild knowing who I was earlier. If Abby or Chris find out I was screwing with them, let's just say it's not going to go well.

"Lucas! Cord!" Chris yelled, making us jump a bit. "Are you two coming or not?"

"Coming!"

"Coming!" Chris went back to going downstairs after I said that. Once we couldn't see him anymore, I sighed. "You know, we wouldn't be in this hole if you decided to say we're both from Universe—."

"Stop. There's an actual reason why I did that." Cord started going down the steps, making me look down. Abby reached toward the top of the patch of light, which I would figure is the first sublevel. "Are you coming or not?"

"Oh, sorry, I got distracted." I ran down the wooden stairs,almost tripping on one of them, before slowing down to Cord's speed once I was right next to him. "Are you going to explain why you lied?"

The Alolan Raichu thought to himself for a moment before nodding. "Fine. When Darkness Pokémon graduate, they take a medical treatment—the treatment depends on what the Pokémon chooses—that makes the Darkness officers know where they are. And worse, they can listen in to what you and anyone else around are saying. It's called Dark Pinging."

Oh, great. Knowing where we are makes us vulnerable. "Does that mean if they can find where you are, they can set up an attack over here?"

"No, that'll be stupid of them." He quickly glanced at the height we were in before looking up. "Every legendary and mythical would know about it and would attack their base. Luckily, this is relatively new, so the effect only lasts a whole minute, and it takes a whole hour of recharging to activate the effect again." He placed a paw under his tiny nose to rub the fur. "At least that's what Bisharp told me a while ago."

"Really?" I looked down again. Chris just got to the bottom of the ladder and joined where Abby was. "Are they listening to us now?"

"No, they Dark Pinged me when we were talking about Sentry Duty. We're fine right now."

Oh, thank God. I thought we were screwed with Cord telling us about that. An assumption quickly popped in my mind, so I shared it. "I'm going to guess because of Dark Pinging, you lied about the Universe we're in."

"Yeah," The Raichu nodded in agreement. "The thing is if the Darkness found out we're from Universe One, that's going to put your entire world in jeopardy. Think about it. Universe Three and Two are probably going to survive the attacks the Darkness is going to throw at them because they have Pokémon right there to help fend them off. Universe One doesn't, so it's a very easy target for them." Cord and I found ourselves finally getting right on top of the light in the sublevel. "We'll talk about this later."

Going down into the light, the floor shined brightly inside Sublevel 1. The walls, windows having the view of the sea, and the two bulletin boards on each side feels real. Partially nostalgic, but real.

And I think Chris spoke for myself.

"Woah!" He looked around like a kid spending their first Christmas.

Me and Cord walked up to them with a bit of a fake smile. "You like it?" Cord asked the shiny Eevee.

"Are you kidding me? I love it!"

I chuckled while rubbing my nose. "Glad you like it. Now let's try to figure out how we can join this place."

"Excuse me! Who is yelling up here?!"

A bird started flying up to land on top of the ladder going to the next floor. It looked around and ended up meeting its eyes on Abby. "Oh, great. It's them."

"Excuse me! Who is yelling up here?" The four of us saw a bird flying up to land on top of the ladder going to the next subfloor. It looked around and ended up meeting its eyes on Abby. "Oh, welcome back, Abby and friends!" Wait. He has a music note as a head, multiple colors as feathers...

Oh my God, it had to be Chatot. I know that it's weird to passionately hate a character that had limited lines, but I consider him the only exception. If you like him, ignore this, and you do you.

"Are you four going to tell me why you haven't taken any jobs for the past three days?"

Cord chimed in while placing a paw on my mouth. "Sorry about that. We took a huge beating in one of our missions, and we needed to regroup. I thought a few days of rest was all we needed."

"Hmm." Chatot looked at the Shiny Eevee before nodding. "Fine, I'll let it slide this time."

I was relieved while making a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank you—."

"But I expect you four to be here for two jobs tomorrow." The Chatot's feathery arms crossed—or at the very least tried to. "I've been asking around."

A job? I finally arrived at one of the most famous places in video game history, and now I have to labor? That sucks! "Yes, sir!" Everyone shouted while doing somewhat of a salute.

"Yes sir," I mumbled while giving a deadpan expression.

As Chatot left, the two Eevee decided to explore around, probably because Abby wanted to spot some differences and show Chris what's what. "Cord, open your Treasure Bag," I said to him.

Cord gave me a look questioning my motives. "What for?"

"Just trust me." After a few moments, Cord opened his Treasure Bag and began to inspect it. To his surprise, he found a badge with a black circle in the middle of the badge and showed it to me. "I knew it!"

"You knew what?" Cord asked, trying to inspect the item.

"Okay, the badge you have right now, that symbolizes a rescue team, like in Explorers of Sky." My paw quickly moved to the back of the badge to point at it. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but the back of the badge says it's in Guildmaster Rank, and the team name is called Team Cool."

The Alolan Raichu squinted at the letters. I assumed it took a while to read because of the dialect that literally no human can understand. Well, minus Cord, since he was mouthing the words at everyone in the room. My best friend placed a paw on my forehead. "Have you touched a Thunder Stone lately, Lucas?" He asked me.

I sighed while shaking my head. "That's a bad joke, Cord. The point is..." I leaned closer to him so no one could physically hear me. "I think Harmony used the Explorers of Sky game you gave me three years ago for this purpose."

It took a few seconds for that to sink in, but he finally realized when his eyes widened. "Oh, that's why Harmony wanted me to give you that game. But why did you name it Team Cool? It sounds weird."

Of course, he knew about what Harmony did. I didn't answer the question and walked up to Abby and Chris. "Why are you staring at the Mission Board like that?" I asked them, trying to find the paper they were looking at.

"I'm interested in this mission..." She mumbled while looking at one of them. "It's on the 18th floor of Misty Mountain, and we need to grab a Blue Gummi there."

"Misty Mountain is far away from here." Cord stated. "If we're going to get back before sundown, I suggest we get a move on."

"Right!" The rest of us yelled while nodding

All of us ran up the steps and raced to Misty Mountain... Wait, why did I name my team Team Cool?

***

Misty Mountain 17F-18F (Stairs)

4:00 pm

Objective:

Find the Blue Gummi!

We ran 15 miles—about 24.1 kilometers if you use the metric system—to get back to Misty Mountain. That took about two hours of walking/running. Now we were going to the floor where the item is supposed to be found.

"Damn, I'm so tired right now," I said panting.

"Lucas, that's your fault."

"Well, someone should have stopped me before I decided to run into the entrance!" Everyone stopped and looked down at me. "...Okay, I'll shut up now."

We entered a large room after just getting into the 18th floor. Five items were scattered across the room, with the Blue Gummi in the middle of the entire room. "Well, that was lucky." I walked up to pick up the Gummi when... I can't really explain it now, but I felt something was off.

"Manny, is something up?" My best friend floated a few inches while talking.

"I think so," I responded while looking around. "I don't know what it is, but..." A whiff of something almost made me choke. I swallowed the smell and coughed it out. The three shouted my name in concern and rushed over to me. Cord started patting me in the back, which made me cough even more.

"Cord, stop!" I shouted back while coughing loudly. When he stopped, I took a few breaths trying to get rid of the toxins in my body. "That was smoke. Not from a Pokémon, but actual smoke from a fire."

"Okay," The Raichu nodded while placing a paw on his chin. "You haven't smelled the smoke until now, so that means it's coming from the higher floors. The problem is there's only two floors left in this dungeon, so I don't know where—..." He stopped talking after just realizing something. "Crap, the cabin!" Cord immediately used Teleport and disappeared from our sight.

I tried to call him out, but Abby waved me off. "Lucas, he can't hear you...," she said to me. "Cabins are flammable. And it's two floors above us."

Chris started zooming past us and started to turn right. "Then what are we doing standing around?" he said to the two of us, "Let's go!" Me and Abby nodded to each other and started running on four paws.

For better or for worse.

***

Misty Mountain 20F (Peak)

4:15 pm

Armed with an Electro Ball on my right hand, I slowly peeked at the area where Cord's cabin was. To no one's surprise, only Cord stood right in front of his cabin. But it wasn't his original cabin he was looking at; It was the beaten down, burned up version of it.

I got rid of the Electro Ball and ran right next to Cord. "What the heck happened here?" I started looking around, trying to find an answer.

"Manny, the house exploded," my best friend stated the obvious. "What do you think happened?"

The two Eevee joined up with us to begin inspecting the damage. Chris started taking tiny steps to avoid getting a splinter from the wood. "At first glance, this place looks like it collapsed with a fire."

"That's not possible." Cord responded. He started to float into the middle of the wreckage.

"Cord," Chris said to him, "I'm pretty sure the fire is our best explanation. Sure, the explosion might have happened after, but there's no way it—." The Raichu suddenly threw a large piece of wood off the mountain peak, exposing the fireplace Cord had in his cabin. Something was wrong with the fire, though, as it was surrounded by a pink, see-through shield.

It was surrounded by a pink, see-through shield.

"Oh..." All three of us looked at the non-harmed fireplace for a whole minute and turned back to the Raichu, waiting for an explanation.

Cord quickly cleared his throat before talking. "Harmony came a few weeks ago to the cabin to spend the night. She said her reasoning was to 'get it away from it all', but to be honest, I didn't really care." My bestie bent down and started poking the shield to make sure it was still working. "I assumed Harmony used the shield on the fireplace sometime in the middle of the night and forgot to get rid of it once she left."

"Great...," Chris looked back at the fireplace. "Now that leaves us back to having no clue who did the attack."

"I have an idea who did it." I said. Everyone looked at me. "It had to be the Darkness."

"Really, Lucas?" Chris said flatly.

"I don't know Chris." Abby looked at him. "It might explain how Swampert found us in Idle Island."

"That and it's probably how they knew where we were going."

Chris looked at everyone and let out a sigh of defeat. "Fine, it could have been that. But what are we going to do with this?" He pointed at Cord's cabin.

"I got this." Cord used Psychic to lift all the wood, metal, and other burned objects from the cabin. He combined all the wood and metal to make a wooden dome. The burned objects were restored to their original forms and were placed inside the wooden dome. A door formed on our side of the dome and Cord encased the dome with a pink shield, which turned invisible momentarily after.

Cord made another cabin in about fifteen seconds.

"Show off."

"Shut up, Lucas." Cord said looking at me. "Let's get out of here."

Cord went to all of us and used Teleport.

***

Meanwhile:

4:20 pm

???

Bisharp's black eye from Master still hurt at the moment, but he had other things to do. After a series of knocks on a door, he entered a room with multiple Pokémon working on something. Human computers were being used with all of them being connected to one big screen connecting to a database. When he entered, everyone stopped doing whatever they were doing, and turned to Bisharp. A female Emolga approached him.

"Bisharp, what a surprise to see you here! Do you want us to Dark Ping Cord again?"

"Not this time. In fact, we're not going to try and Dark Ping him for a while." Everyone in the room looked at him confused.

"Then what did you come here for?"

"Orders from the Master. He wants this entire room to create a new file for research."

"Okay, Bisharp." The Emolga took out a notepad out of nowhere. "What's the name of the file?"

"Call it... Universe 1."

*Game File Saved*